The beginning is everything. (Ancient Greek proverb)
The satyr plays of the Greeks living in and around the fifth century BC were performed along with tragedies and comedies at the festival of Dionysus. Comedy is believed to be inherited from this tradition of pastoral plays, a tradition designed to alleviate the audience from the human condition portrayed in tragedies. Satyr plays were a kind of pastoral play but like some other stories of shepherd boys – The Law’d is my shepherd; I shall not want - the chorus would be composed of wild satyrs with a weakness for wine and/or sex. Their leader was the “father” in search of their master, Dionysus, but the chorus would always be lost, never finding their way to their homes or to their god. Given their amoral and humourous character, this hardly ended in a complete tragedy for the chorus. Apart from these guidelines, there seems to have been no rules for satyr plays.
I on the prow held a great fitted beam
while my sons were labouring at the oars
whitening grey sea-water into foam:
and all this in search of you my lord.
From the satyr play, Cyclops by Euripedes
For the Greeks, the god was treated like an esteemed human guest at the festival. In the Odyssey, the profanity of the godless Cyclops who only respected the rule of might, was his lack of hospitality towards strangers. When the Cyclops was blinded, he asked who was there and Odysseus replied, I am Nobody, masking his true identity from the monster.
It seems a little strange today to think of theatre and tales as being a part of religious ceremony. The writings of Homer were the ancient Greek equivalent of the Bible, a source of morals and values. The Catholic Church, for example, does not count horny satyrs as among God’s creatures let alone as part of His priesthood. Cyclops and satyrs are diabolical inventions of the Devil, pagan religious icons and idols when, in truth, the rules of their own rituals share the same sacrosanct form as the amoral character of a chorus from the satyr play holding a great-fitted beam on the prow of a ship. The rites performed by the priest, blessing the bread and the wine, transmuting the ordinary fare into the body and blood of Christ are, similarly and parabolically, pieces of performance art. Lines are given to the actors from the Holy Script.
In this manner shall ye pray…
Today, God’s away on business. He has no time for festivals and plays. The serious work of saving souls and unborn babies, running for the White House and fighting the war on terra, has taken over any transcendental laughter or gaiety. You are either for US or against US IE you are a terrorist.
Socrates was poisoned for steering the youth away from the gods. Plato-Socrates criticised the stories of Homer in expounding upon the education of the Guardians for his Republic, subjecting the fanciful tales to the ponderous weight of reason thus inventing theology, the discursive meaning of God as source of the penultimate Good. Beginning here in recorded history, the just society and the good life – happiness as a virtue, a verb - became serious business - a noun, a state, a product commodified and homogenised.
The modern interpretation of God has become politicised even further. The wine no longer intoxicates in the Christian eucharist, only cleanses – it serves a hygienic function. Health and Safety orders from on high. You want to register a complaint about the global fincancial crisis? No, you can’t speak to Him – He’s away on business. Leave a message after the beep.
Time waits for no man. Contrary to a popular belief, faith is the suspension of belief. It is the ability to act. I am emale, holding a great-fitted beam on the prow of omniversity, my words rolling the either/oars, churning the grey sea-waters into a whitening foam, driven on countless waves of laughter (eckoing Aeschylus), in search of you, my law’d.
